“The reason I was fired was because I pissed off a lot of white people, because
they thought only blacks got arrested for drugs,” insists Melton, who often
catches young kids with joints in their car, but opts to destroy the small quantity rather than arrest them over $10. “I arrested a lot of white dealers in meth
houses and white people who got impunity for years, while the black street kids
were getting busted for years. I can deal with the black kids in another way. But
the 50-year-olds who are feeding them have to be dealt with severely.”
After losing that title, Melton used his popularity among citizens believing in
his stance on crime and drugs to run for mayor. He ran a balanced campaign
that appealed to both rich whites intimidated by the presence of drug dealers
and the poor and underprivileged. He also won over the Hip Hop community
by speaking to the Mississippi Artists and Producer’s coalition (M.A.P.), an
organization founded by local artists including Kamikaze, Tony B., Azziatik Blakk
and Donnie Money. He went on to win the election and was inaugurated into
office in July 2005 after defeating Jackson’s first black mayor, Harvey Johnson,
Jr. Though he promised everything from lowering crime rates to boosting the
economy, Melton’s time as mayor has been nothing but controversy.

department. J.P.D. made the shoot a hassle, harassing crew members and even
lured Nitti into getting arrested for disorderly conduct on the spot. Eventually,
Batman wound up in jail again too.
About a year later, the Wood Street Players had a show scheduled with rap
neighbors 601 Playas on a rival’s part of town at Club Soups. Already reluctant
to do the show, Donelson spotted a rival and “one thing led to another.”
“I was on stage rapping. All I remember is people shooting and people running,
so I took off running,” says Donelson. “When I got to my car, they arrested me
and another guy named Roger Taylor, who is a confidential informant now.”

read about his dispute with ex-con/rapper Albert “Batman” Donelson.

Batman says that despite the police’s failure to match gun residue with his
weapon, he and Taylor were both charged with aggravated assault because of
that night’s incident where one man was shot three times in the back. Donelson
made bail that night. The cloud of trouble did not disappear. Donelson was
preparing to do a show in Hazlehurst, MS no more than a week later and was
arrested again. This time, cops came to Donelson’s house demanding to know
how he got out of jail so fast. Donelson provided proof of posting bond, but not
without a heated exchange, which he to this day calls a dumb mistake. Feeling
provoked, the officers switched into attack mode and began a search on the
premises. They found a weapon on an associate of Donelson, who claims the
cops pinned on him to charged him with constructive possession of a firearm
by a felon. He served five years, but during the sentence, he continued to be
charged with crimes by Mayor Melton.

“When I used to see him on TV I’d pray, ‘Man, I hope he never gets on me,’”
says Donelson, who became a frequent subject on The Bottom Line. “I wasn’t
doing anything that no one else wasn’t doing. I never had any contact with
Frank other than seeing him on TV. Everybody else he’s called out had some
kind of contact with him. But, one day, I guess my name came across his desk.
You see the name ‘Batman’ and newspeople can latch onto that.”

“They use terms like ‘gang boss’ loosely in Jackson when they really want to
demolish a person,” says Donelson, who has had a handful of murders pinned
on him by Melton, while he was locked up in jail. Melton has also posted up on
Donelson’s mother’s doorstep with a shotgun in response to supposed death
threats. “You should check your facts,” Donelson spits. “[Melton] calls me a drug
dealer but he’s never caught me with any bricks or anything like that.”

Batman was originally known as a member of the Wood Street Players, your
prototypical independent Southern rap group who did what they had to do
to pay for studio time, CDs and video shoots. Their name pays homage to
the notorious Jackson street that is home to the usual crimes you find in
Inner City, U.S.A. Originally comprised of Donelson and Willie “Frank Nitti”
Hardge, and later adding B.I.G. Bigalow of Reese & Bigalow fame, the Wood
Street Players released three albums between 1993 and 2000. The group’s
founders found their passion for rapping during a jail stint in the early 90s
where they’d find themselves battling each other in the cell blocks. Jail was
a constant during the span of their rap careers. Both members went back to
jail in 1995 after the release of their Jacktown Playaz album, got released, put
out a second album, Turnin’ and Burnin’ in 1997, and went back to jail. By the
time they dropped their third album Rules of the Game in 1999, they had a big
enough name to land a deal with Sony. They had a video shoot for a single,
“Life Ain’t Easy,” that was both the talk of the town and the Jackson police

Donelson feels that Melton’s obsession with him and Wood Street stems from
the shooting victim supposedly being the son of a close friend of Melton’s. He
charges that Melton has faulty sources to trump up charges on him and enforce
the vendetta. In a 2006 interview with Jackson Free Press, Melton admits to
being obsessed with the Wood Street Players, but for another reason. Melton
revealed that the infatuation began in the late 80s during his tenure with the
Mississippi Bureau of Narcotics, when he came across a videotape of 16-yearold Reginald Versall. Believed to be a beating victim of Wood Street, Versall was
found lying dead behind a house with maggots coming out of his head.

A simple Google search will give you pages of information ranging from him
tearing down suspected drug houses with sledge hammers to pulling over
school buses on the freeway just to give hugs to the kids on board. You’ll also

“It’s not the police who are watching my back, it’s the guys on the
street.” - MAYOR Frank Melton

64 // OZONE MAG

“It is a damn vendetta. Forget what people think, I’m telling you myself,” says
Melton, who feels guilty for not being able to reach out to Donelson when he
was still a teenager. “I know for a fact he took those people’s lives. He may not
have done it himself, but he ordered that it be done. I have probable cause,
witnesses and six dead bodies.”